SEVENTY years ago servicemen of the town were involved in the Dunkirk evacuation. For 10 days from May 26 until June 4 the evacuation of 338,226 Allied soldiers from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk took place. Golcar man Ron Ellis shares his memories with us.

RON Ellis spent his most traumatic days on the Dunkirk sand dunes waiting to be rescued – only to be bombed on the way home.

Golcar-born Ron was posted in France in January 1940 just one week after he had volunteered for the Royal Engineers.

Ron’s job was to help with construction work on the Maginot Line, a line of forts which was designed, but failed, to keep the Germans out of France.

While the Germans stormed through Belgium a British tactical retreat was announced, and Ron followed a British army column to Dunkirk to await rescue.

Ron, 94, spent over a week on the sand dunes at Dunkirk while bombs fell around him.

He joined queues for ships back to Britain, only to be turned back.

Ron, a retired textile designer, said: “It was just hell on earth. When you approach Dunkirk the first vision you got was fire and troops queuing to leave. It was unsettling. You were just hoping to get on a boat.

“Right from the beginning I saw the Luftwaffe. We were wandering about, with no food and we had to steal it from allotments and farms.

“A piece of shrapnel landed a foot from me. It scared me half to death.”

After just over a week on the sands, Ron was taken aboard a trawler back to England.

But halfway across the Channel two German planes bombed the boat, leaving grandfather-of-two Ron treading water.

Ron said: “The trawler had no weapons so we were defenceless. We felt like sitting ducks.

“A bomb hit the ship and some people must have died but I didn’t see it.

“The ship went down slowly. We had nothing so we stripped off and swam. There was a moment of deadly quiet then a cockney voice rang out: ‘Which way is bloody England!’”

Fortunately Ron and other Brits were only in the water for 30 minutes when another boat plucked them from the Channel and took them to Dover.

Ron said: “I don’t know how I felt when I got home; relieved I suppose. I felt lucky – very lucky – that I was bombed and still survived it.”

Mr Ellis was later stationed in Scotland where he lay mines and helped fortify the British coast.

He returned to France for D-Day to help clear mines and finished his military service in Hanover, Germany, in 1946.

His award for national service was mentioned in military dispatches at the time.